WARCRAFT III: THE FROZEN THRONE
HUMAN UNIT FAQ
by Def_Joe_Griffe
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Table of Contents
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1......Introduction
2......Units
3......Heroes
4......General Strategies
5......Do's and Do Not Do's
6......Credits/Copyright
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1. Introduction
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I've recently started playing Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne, and I've
decided to write a faq about the units of my favourite race: the humans.
Humans are the most versalite class to play with - if you have trouble
choosing a race, choose humans. Humans have good, well-balanced units from
powerful melee fighters to a very strong anti-air army.
Humans have also quite cheap units compared to other races. With the best
and the most armored defensive structures AND units in the game, humans' base
will not be rallied in a second. Quick to train and easy to use, humans will
be the very first choice of new players.
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2. Units
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Peasant
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Trained at: Town Hall
Cost: 75 Gold, 1 Food
HP: 220
Damage: Normal 5-6, 12-14,13-16,14-17,15-18
Armor: Heavy 0,2,4,6,8,10
Training time: Very Short
Upgrades: Improved Lumber Harvesting, Advanced Lumber Harvesting
Peasant is the basic worker unit of the humans. They are quite slow lumber
harvesters, but it can be upgraded. Peasants have also secondary use than just
workers - they can be converted into Militia at Town Hall for 45 seconds. This
is useful to repel the enemy's attack if your base is being rallied as Militia
have quite a high armor. Don't send Militia into enemy's hands in the first
place, send in your other units first so Militia can support your army in
pushing the enemy back.
Footman
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Trained at: Barracks
Cost: 135 Gold, 2 Food
HP: 420
Damage: Normal 12-14,13-16,14-17,15-18
Armor: Heavy 2,4,6,8
Training time: Short
Upgrades: Defend
Footman is the basic melee unit of the humans. These armored fighters have
quite a low HP, but when upgraded their armor is not bad for a Tier 1 unit
and will provide useful late in the game if used in large numbers. The upgrade
- Defend - allows Footman to take only a little damage from Piercing attacks
but will have slowed movement speed. Defend is essential for Footmen,
especially if the enemy is using a lot of units that have Piercing damage.
Overall, Footmen aren't that bad.
Rifleman
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Trained at: Barracks
Cost: 205 Gold, 20 Lumber, 3 Food
HP: 505
Damage: Piercing 18-24,19-28,20-32,21-36
Armor: Medium 0,2,4,6
Training time: Medium
Upgrades: Long Rifles
The basic ground-to-air unit. In my option, Rifleman is the best Tier 1 unit
in the whole game. Their attack isn't that powerful, but they have a very fast
attack rate and quite a good HP. Their cost is quite expensive, but these
dwarves are worth it! In large numbers, Riflemen become killing machines
against the enemy's air units. Get the Long Rifles upgrade as soon as
possible, it increases the range of Riflemen attacks. I'd recommend having
few of these dwarves in every single group in case of enemy air units.
Flying Machine
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Trained at: Workshop
Cost: 90 Gold, 30 Lumber, 1 Food
HP: 200
Damage: Piercing 13-15,15-17,16-19,17-21
Siege 7-11,8-12,9-13,10-14
Armor: Heavy 2,4,6,8
Training time: Short
Upgrades: Flying Machine Bombs, Flak Cannons
Flying Machine is extremely useful. They are very fast and thus excellent at
scouting. Better have one or two of these near the enemy base so you can see
what the enemy's up to. Better not use Flying Machines as anti-air units
because of their lousy HP and so-so damage. The Flying Machine Bombs-upgrade
allows them to gain a siege attack against buildings, which isn't very powerful
either. Flak Cannons gives you an area of effect damage against air units.
Anyhoo, as I already said, use Flying Machines as scouts in every single game.
Mortar Team
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Trained at: Workshop
Cost: 180 Gold, 90 Lumber, 3 Food
HP: 360
Damage: Siege 52-66,53-77,54-90,55-103
Armor: Heavy 0,2,4,6
Training time: Medium
Upgrades: Flare, Fragmentation Shards
In my option, the best siege unit in the whole game. Mortar Teams don't have
as good damage as the other siege units, but they have the fastest attack rate
and movement speed. Bring a pair of these guys while rallying the enemy's
base, they'll provide very useful. Flare-upgrade is also very useful, it
allows Mortar Teams to reveal any area in the map for a small amount of time.
It can only be used once per a team, though.
Siege Engine
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Trained at: Workshop
Cost: 195 Gold, 60 Lumber, 3 Food
HP: 700
Damage: Siege 45-55,46-66,47-77,48-88
Armor: Fortified 2,4,6,8
Training time: Very Long
Upgrades: Barrage
Siege Engines are mechanic siege units. They are extremely good at destroying
enemy buildings, but their range is very short, their movement speed is slow
and due to their big size it takes a lot of time from them to seek a place to
rally an enemy's building. However, their high armor allows them to sustain
helluva lot of damage, especially against defensive structures. In any case,
I prefer Mortar Teams instead of Siege Engines.
Priest
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Trained at: Arcane Sanctum
Cost: 130 Gold, 10 Lumber, 2 Food
HP: 290,320,370
MP: 200,300,400
Damage: Magic 8-9
Armor: Unarmored 0
Training time: Medium
Upgrades: Adept Training, Master Training
Priests are supporting spellcasters of the humans. Like all the other
spellcasters, they've got three spells.
Heal - Priest's most important spell, which heals the target unit for 25
health with the cost of only 5 mana. You can see how important is that.
Better have at least two of these guys at your main base so they can
heal wounded units returning home after a battle against the enemy.
Dispel Magic - Requires Adept Training. Dispels all buffs in the selected area.
Not very useful, but it also deals a lot of damage to summoned
units, so if your enemy is using a lot of summoned units, this
spell will provide useful.
Inner Fire - Requires Master Training. If you're planning to use Priests in
battle, make sure you let them cast Inner Fire on your units at
the start of the battle, as it increases the unit's armor and
attack damage. This is an extremely useful spell and has a
significant change in your army when cast on all of your units.
Sorceress
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Trained at: Arcane Sanctum
Cost: 155 Gold, 20 Lumber, 2 Food
HP: 320,365,405
MP: 200,300,400
Damage: Magic 10-12
Armor: Unarmored 0
Training time: Medium
Upgrades: Adept Training, Master Training
Sorceresses are versalite spellcasters of the humans. The three spells are:
Slow - Slow is quite useful spell as it lowers the enemy's movement and attack
speed. It is very good against the enemy units and heroes.
Invisibility - Requires Adept Training. Allows the Sorceress to turn the
target invisible. Good for scouting, but not Sorceresses' backbone.
Polymorph - Requires Master Training. Turns the target unit into a harmless
sheep that has no attack but retained HP and armor. This is very
useful especially if used on the most powerful enemy units. Can
not be used on Heroes and air units.
Spell Breaker
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Trained at: Arcane Sanctum
Cost: 215 Gold, 30 Lumber, 3 Food
HP: 600
MP: 250
Damage: Normal 13-15,14-18,15-21,16-24
Armor: Heavy 3,5,7,9
Training time: Medium
Upgrades: Control Magic
Spell Breakers are the worst nightmare of the enemy spellcasters. Spell
Breakers have magic immunity, and their ability - Spell Steal - allows
them to steal a positive buff from the enemy and apply it on a friendly unit.
Spell Breaker's attacks also lower the target's mana per hit, and has
increased damage against units with mana. The upgrade Control Magic allows
the Spell Breaker to take control of an enemy summoned unit. As you can see,
Spell Breakers are meant to destroy spellcasters. They're extremely useful if
the enemy is going heavy on spellcasters, otherwise, they're not that good.
I wouldn't recommend them to be used as attack units, Knights will often
replace them.
Knight
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Trained at: Barracks
Cost: 215 Gold, 60 Lumber, 4 Food
HP: 835,985
Damage: Normal 30-40,31-45,32-48,33-53
Armor: Heavy 5,7,9,11
Training time: Long
Upgrades: Animal War Training
Knights are very strong Tier 3 melee units. They have great attack power and
the highest unit armor in the game (!). However, they're quite expensive, but
if your resources allow, replace Footmen with these riders. Knights are also
very fast so hit-and-run tactics can also be used. If you're going to heavy
Knights, the Animal War Training upgrade is mandatory, because it adds +150 HP
for them.
Gryphon Rider
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Trained at: Gryphon Aviary
Cost: 270 Gold, 70 Lumber, 4 Food
HP: 825,975
Damage: Magic 45-55,46-66,47-77,48-88
Armor: Light 0,2,4,6
Training time: Long
Upgrades: Animal War Training, Storm Hammers
Gryphon Riders are the best unit humans have. With the Animal War Training and
Storm Hammers upgrades, Gryphon Riders become killing machines against
everything - units and buildings. One group of 12 Gryphons can easily wipe
the enemy's army because of the insane damage Gryphons cause in large numbers.
However, their attack type is magic, so they won't be providing useful
against targets with magic immunity. Anyhoo, use Gryphon Riders as soon as
possible. You can't go wrong with these dwarves.
Dragonhawk Rider
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Trained at: Gryphon Aviary
Cost: 200 Gold, 30 Lumber, 3 Food
HP: 575,725
Damage: Piercing 18-20,19-23,20-26,21-29
Armor: Light 1,3,5,7
Training time: Medium
Upgrades: Cloud, Animal War Training
Dragonhawk Riders provide to be my favourite human unit, and the most powerful
air unit if used right. Although they're weak in the beginning, once they're
upgraded they will become quite powerful. Dragonhawk Riders don't have a very
good attack damage, but in massive numbers they can easily kill a horde of
Frost Wyrms. You know why? The ability Aerial Shackles allows the Dragonhawk
Rider to trap an enemy air unit on it's place and disarm that unit temporaly,
plus, causing the shackled unit to take damage over time. If you manage to
shackle every air unit the enemy has with every single Dragonhawk of yours,
the enemy's air force is done for. The duration of Aerial Shackles is very
long, so a weaker air unit will easily die to the damage caused by Shackles.
You can also let your other anti-air units to focus fire on the shackled
units, causing them to die even more quickly. You can now see how important
these riders are, although not many people use them. They're not very good
against the enemy's ground force due to their low attack damage, so in that
case use Gryphons. Upgrade Cloud before going to rally enemy's base, because
it's also a very important ability. When Dragonhawk Rider casts Cloud on the
selected area, all defensive structures in that area can't attack. This is
extremely useful. In fact, Dragonhawk Riders are a must if the enemy is using
a lot of towers.
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3. Heroes
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All heroes are trained at Altar of Kings, and the summoning cost is just 5
Food. Reviving costs gold, and the cost increases by the hero's level. Each
hero has four abilities, and they can gain new ranks on them by every level.
Archmage
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Abilities:
Summon Water Elemental - Archmage summons a Water Elemental to fight for you.
This is why Archmage is often chosen. Water Elemental
has a ranged attack, decent HP and they can be kept
summoning as long as the Archmage has enough mana.
Blizzard - Archmage calls down bolts of ice on the selected area to damage the
enemy units. This is a very powerful spell, just make sure your own
units won't get hit by it.
Brilliance Aura - An aura that increases nearby units' mana regeneration. Not
much use for this ability. Can be good if you're going to
heavy on spellcasters.
Mass Teleport - Teleports the Archmage and 24 other units to a friendly
building. Not a very useful ultimate, but very good if your
base is being razed and you're somewhere else killing creeps so
you'll get some defense over there right away.
Archmage is quite a good hero, because his Water Elemental spell can be
amassed, which is useful for supporting your troops. Constant summoning of the
elementals increases your attack's longevity as long as you keep using this
spell. Another great spell, Blizzard, is also very useful, especially if
the enemy is using a lot of spellcasters/ranged units. Just call down Blizzard
on that area, but make sure your land units won't get hit by it (that's why
it would be better for you to have more ranged units than ground units if
you're planning to use Blizzard a lot). Archmage is also fast so hit-and-run
tactics with Blizzard are possible. However, Archmage has got downsides. He is
very fragile and quickly killed by a group of Tier 3 melee units, and his
stats aren't very good. OVerall, Archmage is a very good hero if used right.
PROS:
+ Great area of effect spell
+ Wonderful at harrassing the enemy
+ Can constantly keep summoning Water Elementals
+ Good at supporting other spellcasters
+ Fast and thus easy to escape from battle
CONS:
- Easy to kill
- Weak stats overall
- Hard to use by new players
Paladin
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Abilities:
Holy Light - Heals the target friendly unit. This is Paladin's most useful
spell, as it can quickly restore a badly wounded Knight back to
nearly full health.
Divine Shield - Shields the Paladin from any damage. This can be quite useful
if you're Paladin's getting focus fired. It also lasts pretty
long at the highest level.
Divine Aura - An aura that increases friendly units armor. Not a bad aura,
especially when you have Knights who have the highest armor in
the game.
Resurrection - Brings 6 nearby friendly units back to life. For an ultimate
this can provide extremely useful. This spell can turn the tide
for your favor in any situation. However, it costs a lot of mana.
Paladin isn't very good at dealing nor taking damage, but he's useful to have
as a backup to heal your units. That's the Paladin's main purpose; keep your
own units alive with Holy Light, Divine Aura and Resurrection. Divine Shield
is quite useful if your main healer's being attacked. But as I already said,
Paladin shouldn't be used for dealing damage, because he will provide quite
bad at it.
PROS:
+ Great support unit
+ Easy to keep alive with Divine Shield
+ Useful ultimate
CONS:
- Weak fighter
- Easy to take down if focus fired
- Uses a lot of mana
Mountain King
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Abilities:
Storm Bolt - Throws a magical hammer at the target that stuns and deals
damage. This is the Mountain King's most useful ability. It has
an insane damage and can stun for nearly ten seconds at the
highest level. Extremely useful in order to stop an escaping
enemy hero or any other powerful unit.
Thunder Clap - Stomps the ground, causing damage and stunning nearby enemy
units. This is also quite useful; send Mountain King into
enemy's hands and use Thunder Clap when he is surrounded
by the enemy force.
Bash - Every attack has a chance to do extra damage and stun the target. Not
a bad thing, this passive ability can provide very useful when attacking
heroes.
Avatar - Increases strength, HP, armor and renders spell immunity. When
Avatar is activated, Mountain King is unstoppable. He beats the
hell out of any other unit or hero, and takes incredible amounts
of punishment.
In my option, Mountain King is one of the best, if not the best, hero in the
game. He has high strength, defense, hp and can beat armies of the enemy's
Tier 1 melee units before falling. Mountain King will usually have the upper
hand on hero-against-hero battle. Especially at higher levels he will also
withstand massive amounts of pain. Mountain King's ultimate, Avatar,
transforms him into a crazy, unstoppable killing machine that wipes out the
enemy before you know it. There are no really cons on Mountain King. He's not
very useful in early levels due to his lack of abilities.
PROS:
+ Very hard to take down
+ Great damage
+ Insanely powerful abilities
+ Extremely good at hero-against-hero combat
+ Very useful ultimate
CONS
- Not very good at early levels
Blood Mage
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Abilities:
Flame Strike - Summons a firestorm on the selected area. Flame Strike works
the exact same way as Archmage's Blizzard.
Banish - Turns the enemy target into etheral so he is unable to attack and
takes extra damage from magic. A good strategy is to banish a few
targets and cast Flame Strike to deal a helluva lot of damage.
Banished targets' movement speed is also slowed. Can't be cast on
heroes, though.
Siphon Mana - Drains the target unit's mana. Very useful if your Blood Mage
is out of it. However, it can only be used on targets with mana.
Also good for draining another hero's mana so that hero is unable
to use any abilities.
Phoenix - Summons a Phoenix to fight for you. This is quite a good ultimate,
plus when your Phoenix dies, he will turn into an egg and resurrect
if the egg remains untouched for a while. This can only be used once
per a Phoenix, though.
For new players Blood Mage isn't very useful because they don't have enough
micro management to use Blood Mage in the right way. However, when Blood Mage
is used in a right way by more skilled players, he becomes very powerful.
Flame Strike works the same way as Blizzard, so make sure your own units won't
get hit by hit. Banish is useful to hold out powerful Tier 3 melee units from
attacking you. Plus, a banished target takes extra damage from magic attacks,
which means Banish + Flame Strike = extreme damage. This is the most common
(and the most effective) strategy used while playing a Blood Mage. Blood Mage's
ultimate is quite useful for strengthening your forces for a while, but
it's not as useful as Mountain King's Avatar, for example.
PROS:
+ Very good if used right
+ Great spells to take down groups of enemies
+ Can regain own mana quickly
+ Useful ultimate
CONS:
- Very vulnerable
- Not very good if used wrong
- Hard to use as a secondary hero
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4. General Strategies
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Against Orcs:
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In my option, orcs are the easiest match for the humans. Although orcs are
far more powerful in ground combat and will easily defeat the humans early
in the game, they will suck very badly once you get Gryphon Riders. Due to
the orcs' lack of anti-air force and air units, you'll easily beat up the
orcs once you're able to train an army of Gryphons. The only way for the
enemy to encounter your Gryphons are Wind Riders and Headhunters. Headhunters
have a lousy HP and they will die after a few Gryphon Rider's hammer strikes.
Wind Riders have a good damage, but they are also fragile and are no match
for your Gryphons. Bring in a few Priests for Inner Fire and your Gryphons
become killing machines. A little more skilled player might train Raiders to
ensnare your Gryphons to the ground. However, this is quite uncommon because
most players think Raiders suck and thus never choose to train them. Another
way to counter your anti-air force is Batrider rush, but I don't see this
happening very often. You can prevent it with Dragonhawk Riders using Aerial
Shackles, but you must be VERY quick if you're going to shackle most of the
Batrider force.
If you don't use air units that much and your key to victory consists of
ground units, you will most likely be facing a tough match. The orcish Grunts
put up a fight even against Knights due their great HP and damage. Player
will probably choose to train Tauren that kill your Knights without trouble.
Once the player adds in some Shamans with Bloodlust spell, your army will be
easily beaten up. That's why you should always kill every Shaman you see
at the start of every battle. If the player is using Witch Doctors, deal with
them quickly so they won't be able to set up any of their wards.
Rallying an orc base is a pretty simple task due to the fact that orcs have
the most vulnerable buildings. The Spiked Barricades are not a hold to you,
their damage is lousy and many players choose not to upgrade them. Make sure
you destroy Burrows as soon as possible so Peons won't be able to run inside
them and fire at your units. Also, try to destroy Watch Towers if the player
has them. Fortunately, orcish Watch Towers are very fragile and easy to
destroy. Keep your air force away from them, though. The Watch Towers will
make a quick work of them. Bring in a couple of Dragonhawk Riders to use
Cloud, preventing the towers from attacking.
The orc heroes are quite a tough match for the humans. Tauren Chieftain takes
great amounts of damage and is also a quite good at dealing damage. War Stomp
is an annoying ability, doing damage and stunning your units around the
Chieftain. Shockwave is not a very dependable ability, unless you have a lot
of units in a line and Shockwave hits 'em all. Chieftain quickly kills Archmage
or Blood Mage, so keep them away from him at all times. However, Chieftain is
very big, so he is easily surrounded by a handful of Knights. This is where
he gets a good chance for War Stomp, however.
Blademaster is a famous harraser, with Wind Walk he is able to turn invisible,
gains increased movement speed and the next attack caused while Wind Walking
deals extra damage. With Wind Walk Blademaster will mostly harass your weak
Peasants, so building a few towers around the base is not a bad idea at all.
Blademaster will also easily escape from battle and then assassinate your badly
wounded units when you're returning to base. Besides Wind Walk, Blademaster has
also another VERY annyoing ability, Mirror Image. It creates some images of
the Blademaster so that the player is unable to locate the real Blademaster.
However, the mirror images can't do damage so you can easily find the real one
by carefully watching which one is doing the damage. If you're able to engage
Blademaster in open combat, he is very quickly killed. To prevent him from
escaping the battle with Wind Walk, bring in Blood Mage and siphon the
Blademaster's mana. This is very useful.
Far Seer is one of the most dependable orc heroes. Far Seer is an excellent,
excellent scout and he will easily find out with where you're lurking with Far
Sight and Feral Spirits. Far Seer is also very fast so he is quite hard to
kill if he keeps moving around. Chain Lighting is quite a powerful spell to
deal damage to your air- and ground units and Feral Spirits can deal quite
a lot of damage. However, Far Seer is also quite fragile and will easily die
in open combat.
Shadow Hunter is your least concern when it's about heroes. Shadow Hunter is
a weak fighter, he's very fragile and thus quickly killed. However, Shadow
Hunter's Hex is very annoying as it works the same way as Polymorph. Healing
Wave is used to keep the orc units alive, although it's quite weak. Shadow
Hunter's ranged wards have a good damage, but are easily destroyed by few
hits. Although Shadow Hunter's abilities are not very dangerous, his ultimate
is probably the best there is. Big Bad Voodoo turns all the units around the
Shadow Hunter invulnerable (not your units, of course). In this case you
have absolutely no option but flee, or kill/stun the Shadow Hunter. Overall,
Shadow Hunter is not a very dangerous match for you.
Against Undead:
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Undead put up a match against humans with ease during the early game, but
they can be defeated. In the early game undead player will most likely heavy
on Ghouls and Crypt Fiends, then later moving on to Abominations and the
monstrous Frost Wyrms. I'd recommend having a vast anti-air force consisting
of whole lot of Riflemen and Gryphon Riders. Gargoyles will easily eat your
Gryphons alive, so make sure you deal with them as soon as possible. Lucky
for you, Gargoyles have a lousy HP and thus they are very easy to kill.
Make sure your ground force deals with Crypt Fiends before anything else
so your Gryphons won't be webbed to ground. It might be a good idea to bring
a pair of Dragonhawk Riders also so they can trap Frost Wyrms with Aerial
Shackles. This is VERY useful, by the way.
If the undead player is heaving on ground units, he will engage you with
Abominations and annyoing Necromancers. Necromancers keep summoning skeletons
constantly, so your army will fall easily to the hordes of skeletons. This is
where Priests come in handy. Priests have Dispel Magic, which deals great
damage to summoned units. With a couple of Priests casting Dispel Magic you
can just watch how the enemy's skeletons shatter to bones. To prevent the
skeleton attacks completely, kill every single Necromancer at the start of
every battle.
The most powerful undead ground units, Abominations, are your most concern
after Necromancers. They have a great damage and more HP than your Knights.
However, Abominations are huge and they won't be reaching the battle easily.
Ironically, your Knights are quick and small and in large numbers will easily
defeat the Abominations.
When razing an undead base, you will most likely encounter a significant
number of defensive structures. That's why it's important to always bring
some Siege Engines or Mortar Teams to take care of the towers. Probably all
of the Ziggurats have been upgraded into Spirit Towers or Nerubian Towers.
Try to destroy them as quickly as possible. A very good strategy is to bring
in few Dragonhawk Riders and let them use Cloud on the towers. This is very
useful. By the way, try to pull the undead from the area of Blight to stop
them from regaining health (unless the player has Death Knight with Unholy
Aura it's no use).
Undead heroes are toughies to deal with. If the enemy player chooses to go
for Death Knight first, you'll be facing some hard time. Death Knight is
fast and can easily escape from battle. He'll keep his army alive with Death
Coil and Unholy Aura, and in the worst case he will resurrect any dead units
around with his ultimate. The only thing you can do to destroy the newly raised
dead units before they vanish is Priest's Dispel Magic. Make sure you kill
Death Knight quite quickly. Once again, Mountain King's Storm Bolt is useful
to prevent Death Knight from escaping.
Another annoying hero is Dreadlord. Dreadlord will continously put your most
powerful units and heroes to sleep for a very long time. Make sure you hit
the sleeping units as quickly as possible with any other unit to awake them.
Dreadlord also spreads an excellent aura that causes the undead units to regain
health on every hit. Dreadlord's ultimate calls down an Infernal that is very
difficult to put down. However, Dreadlord is a weak fighter and very fragile
so he'll be no match for a group of Knights or Gryphons.
The two remaining heroes, Crypt Lord and Lich are not very dependable heroes.
Although Crypt Lord sustains an extreme amount of punishment, he is not a
very good damage dealer and has unimppresive abilities to match your army
with. Lich has the most powerful spell in the game and is a good hero killer,
but he's very, very fragile in open combat.
Against Night Elves:
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Night elves are the most dangerous match for the humans. Night elves have
excellent ways to engage your ground and air force. Against your Gryphons
they've got Archers, Dryads and Hippogryphs. Against your ground units
they have Chimaeras and Mountain Giants. Mountain Giants is probably one
of the most dependable night elf units due to their ability to take extremely
lot of damage and taunt your units to attack them. Fortunately, they're not
very good damage dealers. On the other hand, Chimaeras can only attack ground
units and are particulary good at it. That's about your ground force. There's
nearly nothing you can do about Mountain Giants, they just take and take
damage.
The real problem is the night elves' way to encounter your air force; the
cursed Dryads. Dryads are immune to magic and so they can't be attacked by
your Gryphons. In large numbers Dryads and Archers will easily tear through
your air forces. While engaging night elves I wouldn't recommend investing
on air units too much. Dragonhawk Riders might provide useful so they can
shackle the Chimaeras while your Knights handle the Dryads and Archers.
A good strategy is to go crazy with Footmen. Footmen have the Defend ability
so they won't be taking too much damage from Archers. However, Footmen are
easily countered by Huntresses and Chimaeras so it might be a good idea to
bring some other units to back up your Footmen. Priests with Inner Fire are
a must whenever engaging night elves. Bringing a couple of Sorceresses to
Polymorph Mountain Giants is a very effective strategy, if your enemy hasn't
upgraded them enough yet.
Fortunate for you, night elves units are overall very fragile (except for
Mountain Giants). A large group of Knights will easily defeat a whole army
of Archers and Huntresses. A big army of Riflemen is bound to take care of
a horde of Chimaeras. Dragonhawk Riders are also effective at taking care of
fleets of Hippogyrphs or Chimaeras.
Rallying a night elf base is a real threat. You know why? Buildings can
defend themselves, Wisps can detonate against your summoned units and the
cursed Moon Wells can heal the night elf units. If possible, try to pull
the night elves out from the base so Moon Wells won't be able to heal them.
A pair of nearby Moon Wells can quickly restore a Metamorphoed Demon Hunter
back to full health. I don't need to tell you how annyoing is that. Bringing
in a couple of Mortar Teams to pull the night elves from the base and damage
the Moon Wells is quite a good idea.
The night elf heroes are quite a trouble. The most popular hero, Demon Hunter,
puts up a REAL match against your units. Demon Hunter is quick and small and
quite hard to spot in the battlefield. He's got Mana Burn, which can easily
wipe your hero out of mana. Having a Blood Mage with Siphon Mana is not a
very bad idea. Demon Hunter hasn't got a great damage, but he's particulary
hard to kill due to his ability to dodge attacks and damage nearby units
with Immolation. The Demon Hunter's ultimate is monstrous; he becomes nearly
impossible to kill when it's activated. Demon Hunter gains more HP, and a
ranged attack. Demon Hunter becomes very hard to kill when Metamorphoed.
Mountain King's Avatar puts up a match against Metamorphosis, however.
Priestess of the Moon is a fearsome hero. She's got a great aura that increases
all nearby ranged units' attack. You can only think what happens when she is
leading an army of Archers. Priestess of the Moon is also very fast and thus
will easily escape. However, the worst is yet to come. Priestess's ultimate
is extremely powerful. Starfall can wipe out nearly your entire army. Lucky for
you, Priestess of the Moon is quite weak in open combat and is quickly killed
if focus fired. If PotM starts her Starfall ultimate, quickly focus fire on
here and the player will probably move her to cover, interrupting the ultimate.
One of the most dependable night elf heroes is Warden. Warden is an excellent
hero killer, with the monstrous Shadow Strike she can quickly damage your Blood
or Archmage to half a health. Fan of Knives causes terribly much damage against
your weaker units, like Priests for example. Warden is also adept at escaping
from combat or surrounding very quickly with the Blink ability. However,
if you manage to stun Warden with Mountain King's Storm Bolt and then let a
whole group of Tier 3 melee units attack her, she will be dead before you know
it.
If the player chooses Keeper of the Grove as a hero, you have absolutely
nothing to worry about. Keeper of the Grove is very fragile and a very weak
fighter, plus his abilities are nearly useless. You can easily counter the
Treant attack with Dispel Magic. Keeper will most likely use Entangle to keep
your hero away, but you can still kill him with a group of powerful units.
Against Humans:
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Humans versus Humans is quite a decent match, as the other player will most
likely heavy on Gryphons and Knights. Well, the only way to counter this is
to do the same. Get as much Gryphons as you can and some Knights as well.
And don't forget the Priests, they'll provide huge advantage when they have
Inner Fire.
Another strategy for human players is a spellcaster army with tons of Priests,
Sorceresses and Spell Breakers. The best way to counter this is simply a lot
of Footmen and Spell Breakers. Fortify your base and expansions with Arcane
Towers. It may sound strange, but Mortar Teams are very effective against the
unarmored spellcasters. Don't go crazy on Gryphons, they're useless against
Spell Breakers because of their spell immunity.
For the first hero the enemy will most likely choose Mountain King or Archmage.
If he trains Archmage he'll most likely come to harass you in the early game,
so prepare to counter with many Footmen and a Mountain King. If the player
chooses Mountain King, train a vast air force.
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5. Do's and Do Not Do's
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Creeping:
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Make sure you start creeping as soon as your first hero comes out and pair him
with a couple of Footmen. It's very important to creep so you can level up your
Heroes. You don't want to engage your opponent with a level 1 Hero while he has
a level 5 Hero. Don't stay at your main base building a large army so you could
creep the whole map at once. If your opponent has any skills at all, the whole
map is empty when you're just about to start creeping. And one important thing:
while creeping, make sure you keep producing more units so you can engage more
dangerous creeps and won't be creepjacked by your opponent.
Expand:
- - - -
Make sure you capture yourself an expansion as soon as possible. If you'll
have more than just one gold mine you're gonna get twice as much more gold!
Once a gold mine is cleared, make sure you get a Town Hall started at the
captured gold mine right away before your opponent grabs it in front of your
nose. Also, make sure not to leave the expansion that is under construction
unguarded. Build a few towers up there in the first place, or leave some of
your units to protect it. As I already said, start an expansion as soon as
possible. You don't want to lose the game by running out of gold in your first
mine and then reliazing you haven't even started an expansion.
Unit Control:
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Ability to control your units in the middle of the battle is one of the most
important things to do. If one of your heaviest units is badly wounded or
focus fired, move him away from the battlefield for some time. You don't want
to lose a unit that cost you over 300 gold that easily. Also, if your heroes
are taking heavy damage, move them away from battlefield immediately.
-- More coming soon --
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6. Credits/Copyright
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Those who wish to contact me, my e-mail adress is mikko.palomaki@pp1.inet.fi
Contact me by any means if there are errors in this guide, like misspellings
or wrong information about a certain unit. With wrong information I mean the
wrong cost or misspelling of a certain unit, not if you want to mail me about
your opinion for some unit being different from mine. I will ignore you.
I will gladly accept your feedback as long as you're being polite. Any trash
containing swearing or mocking will be deleted. Try to be as proper as possible
if you wish to contact me.
Copyright 2008 by Def_Joe_Griffe. All rights reserved.
This file must not be found on any other sites except for:
http://www.gamefaqs.com
http://www.gamespot.com
http://www.neoseeker.com
Lastly, I would like to thank the following:
Blizzard Entertainment for making this great game.
Myself for creating this guide.
You for reading this guide.
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-- END OF DOCUMENT --
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